Blog of guitarist-composer Martin Chung

sound

Due to its necessity for amplification the sound of the electric guitar is shaped and processed from the outset. Beyond the coloration provided by the amp itself, effects pedals or “stomp boxes” offer numerous ways to transform the signal or create artificial spaces and ambiences. With the advent of the home computing revolution and the democratisation of technology a new wave of sonic possibilities became available to guitarists.

Working with pedals offers a spontaneous, improvisatory approach music creation processing the guitar signal in real-time either via the use of effects pedals. Norwegian guitarist Stian Westerhus uses a wide range of pedals, particular distortion and delay units to create darkly beautiful sonic vistas. Here signal chain becomes vitally important as each pedal can colour another depending on it’s position in sequence. Along with the amp they become as much an instrument as the guitar itself.

Within this digital domain a number of artists make use of the textural possibilities of the electric guitar, sampling raw sounds of the instrument before applying a number of audio manipulation techniques such as granulation or spectral processing. Many of these processes are non-realtime requiring a different compositional workflow. Software environment Max MSP has frequently been a tool of choice, allowing composers to tailor-build audio processing tools unique to their individual needs and stylistic tastes. Christopher Willits uses a combination of Ableton and custom Max patches to build rhythmically shifting patterns from sampled chords and single note lines, a process he describes as “Folding”.

Contrastingly, Touch recording artist Christian Fennesz largely eschews rhythmic elements, utilising Max to create shifting ambient noise-scales constructed from electric and acoustic guitars, often augmenting them with field recordings. He frequently uses Lloopp, a free, pre-written suite of Max patches for sound transformation created with live improvisation in mind.

This patch came about through adopting a more bespoke approach to audio processing in an effort to further develop an individual instrumental and compositional voice. Coded in Max 7, the patch uses the gizmo~ object inside an FFT sub-patch to analyse peaks within given FFT bins before moving them along the frequency axis, shifting the sound up or down in pitch. Max 7 makes pitch shifting even easier with the inclusion of separate specific pitch shift objects without the need for a pfft~ shell however I still prefer to use pfft~ sub patches as they allow individual control over the FFT bin resolution.

The patch also includes volume envelope control based amplitude threshold detection of the incoming audio signal and four individual delay lines (not shown in the patcher pic) routed to the two stereo output channels in pairs. In addition this post also marks a move towards recording video to document specific elements of the EP project.

Martin Chung

I'm a guitarist and composer based in the North of England, currently in the final year of a degree in Music Technology at the University of Huddersfield. I'm also lucky enough to get to play with some wonderful musicians including Jah Wobble, Extra Curricular and Dana Ali.
Love photography, food, hiking and a good pale ale...